Recipe Rescue! What To Do If You Oversalt

How many times have we delicately salted a dish...and salted a little more...and a wee bit more...and then, oops! Suddenly our dish has gone from under-seasoned to tasting like seawater. Can anything be done to save a dish once we've added too much salt?

Unfortunately, once it's in there, there's no getting it back out again - no matter how long you stare at the pot and curse under your breath!

The best thing to do is add more ingredients to the dish to dilute the salt. You might not end up with your original dish, but at least it will be edible.

Another cup of stock will thin out a thick soup or turn an over-salted stirfry into one. A handful of grains or noodles will absorb much of the salt and even taste better for it. Adding more vegetables is yet another option, and a good one if you want to keep the dish as close to the original as possible.

Emma is the recipe editor for The Kitchn and a graduate of the Cambridge School for Culinary Arts. She is the author of True Brews and Brew Better Beer (Spring 2015). Check out her personal blog for more cooking stories.